


How to Make New Friends with Questionable Reading Material

by Arathe



Series: 4/13 Drabbles [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bonding, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arathe/pseuds/Arathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's easier to be honest with strangers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Make New Friends with Questionable Reading Material

**Author's Note:**

> Another 4/13 tumblr drabble request.
> 
> I'm actually sort of tempted to expand on this one. It's an interesting ship!

Initial knowledge dump aside, one of the first things you’d learned about being a sprite was that you had a disturbing tendency to drift when not paying attention. Hazards of being a creature set to ‘float’ by default, you suppose. The second thing you’d learned was that your tail was prehensile and damned useful at preventing the first. Over the years you’d gotten used to it, and these days it was second nature to curl your tail around anything nearby to anchor yourself when you weren’t going anywhere. 

You move distractedly, absorbed in the book you’d borrowed from Rose --a dense volume on Alternian history she’d translated-- tail snaking around the nearest support without thought.

Said support squawks in outrage and yanks you sideways, and you realize with a start that you’d curled your tail around Karkat’s ankle. “Shit. Sorry, wasn’t paying attention.” You release him, winding your tail around the leg of his chair instead. You hadn’t even noticed he was there, but you suppose that’s what you get for wandering distracted.

Karkat grumbles, bending to retrieve the book he’d dropped. A troll bodice ripper, judging by the cover. Literature at its finest, although you can’t say you haven’t read a shitty romance or two in your day. For purely ironic purposes, of course. He stops on his way back up, and you realize he’s staring upside down at where your tail is curled around the chair leg. You consider absconding because you don’t enjoy gawking, but Karkat speaks up before you can decide. “What’s it like?”

He sits upright, expression frankly curious. You almost toss some sort of stock answer about bitchin’ wings and never having to piss, but something stops you. Usually when the subject comes up, there’s some kind of undertone of pity or guilt, but Karkat isn’t asking because he feels bad for you, or out of some kind of bizarro survivor’s guilt. He’s asking because he wants to know.

You and Karkat have barely spoken ten words to each other before now, and somehow that makes an honest answer easier. “Pretty shitty.” You shrug. “But it has its perks, and it’s better than being a corpse.” Sometimes, in the private recesses of your own mind, you aren’t so sure about that last one. But that isn’t something anyone else needs to know.

“Huh.” Karkat absently dog-ears his page and shuts his book. He looks intrigued. “What kind of perks?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Why, you interested in some prime sprite real estate?”

Karkat rolls his eyes and grumps, “I’m just asking, don’t be an ass.”

“The flying is handy, and I don’t have to worry about any inconvenient bodily functions.” You roll your shoulders and flex your wings as you consider. You’ve never really listed out the pros of spritehood before. “Decent regenerative abilities. Encyclopedic knowledge of the game.” Karkat’s eyebrows climb, and you cut him off before he can ask. “Don’t get excited, we’re pretty much all the way off script here.” You uncurl your tail from the chair and use it to pluck the book from his hands, smirking when he snatches it back and glares at you. “Handy-dandy third arm.”

He thwaps your tail with his book, and you stifle a grin before curling it around the leg of the chair again. “Seems like a pretty good deal, unless you count the eye-fuckingly obnoxious color scheme,” he says.

Your feathers ruffle against your will and your good humor evaporates, because yeah. Of course he wouldn’t get it. “I guess it’s pretty rad, until you realize that everyone’s treating you like a shitty xerox of yourself.” As soon as the words are out, you wish you could take them back, because you know Dave and Karkat are pretty good friends. You detach from the chair with a carefully careless shrug. “But hey, what can you do?”

You’re about to abscond, to find somewhere to hide with with your book, when Karkat’s grip stops you. His claws prick the delicate underside of your wrist, and you raise an eyebrow in question. He does some pretty remarkable facial acrobatics, and you swear to god if he spews some sort of patronizing bullshit you will deck him.

Instead he asks, “You read?” with a nod towards Rose’s book, now tucked under your other arm.

You know he’s asking because Dave doesn’t, really. It’s a habit you’ve picked up over the last three years, partially to stave off boredom, partially to escape Jade and John’s company when it got to be too much. You were a little surprised to find how much you liked it, really. “Yeah.” You’re not sure where he’s going with this.

He gives your arm a tug and then releases it. “Then sit your ass down and let me introduce you to some quality fiction.”

You stare, trying to gauge his motivation. Karkat plops back into his chair and waves his book impatiently, and you’re surprised to find that he doesn’t seem to be motivated by some sort of misguided charity. You’re not a pale copy of Dave to be pitied and indulged-- you’re just a dude who also happens to like books.

It’s a nice change of pace.

After a moment of consideration you drift closer, and instead of the chair leg you curl your tail around Karkat’s ankle again. He don’t squawk and flail this time, which is a little disappointing. He just thumbs to the first page with a snort and starts reading.


End file.
